Gas Please....

This Jamaica Plain house has its own gas lamp. Do you know where it is? First correct answer wins a cyber-beer.

The (Second) House That Parley Built

No. 62 Montebello road. Is this the lost house of Samuel (Peter Parley) Goodrich?


Samuel Goodrich was one of Jamaica Plain's most noted citizens in his day. It is difficult to find an analogy to his success in our time. He was a combination of Sesame Street producer, Sunday School teacher and major textbook publisher. As I've discussed him before, I'll move on to the topic of this article. Around 1837, someone seems to have swindled Mr. Goodrich, and he lost much of his money. His estate in Jamaica Plain, (suitably known as Rockland, given its location near outcrops of Roxbury Puddingstone somewhere near today's Parley avenue and Rockview street) was sold off in various pieces; not just real estate, but a horse, pony, cow and calf. Refusing offers of assistance from Boston friends, he and his family moved into his former gardener's quarters to start anew. in the coming years, he would be come active in local Whig politics and serve in the Massachusetts legislature for several terms. Over time, by dint of hard work and the reputation of Peter Parley, he returned to a more comfortable financial state.



I've posted an 1878 article from the Boston Globe that describes a certain property as "the old Parley estate." Rather than being along Centre street, this property is situated between Washington street and Franklin Park. I speculated that a large masonry house on Montebello road might be this second Samuel Goodrich home, but I had no evidence. I've wondered ever since whether there actually was a second Goodrich house as suggested in the cited article, one that has otherwise been forgotten.

Town of West Robury - 1874. Washington street is marked in red. Forest Hill street forks off of Washington street near the bottom.

Existing property maps only go back to 1874, years after Goodrich had died. As described in the previous entry linked above, I suspected that the masonry building pictured above seemed to match the building footprint in the map above on the property of E.F. Parker, and also matched the location mentioned in the 1878 article. I suggested that this may be the old "Peter Parley" house, but it wasn't until I began examining deeds at the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds for another project that I realized that I would be able to track down Mr. Goodrich's property holdings and determine; 1. whether he ever owned a house between Washington street and Walnut avenue, and; 2. was the house pictured above the one? Here is what I found.

The land along School street between Lamartine street and Walnut avenue was donated to the Roxbury Grammar School by Thomas Bell in 1672 to provide income, as was common at the time. The land was leased out for a period, and later sold off to the leasees or others. We are interested in one such plot of land. Jumping ahead to June of 1803, Boston Merchant Thomas Amory paid $2,050 to John Lowell for two plots of land. One, which became the Amory "mansion estate", extended across both sides of School street, then known as the Road to Gamblin's End. The other, a 10 3/4 acre lot, was between the Road to Rocky Swamp (today's Forest Hills street), and Canterbury street, later called Back street, and finally known today as Walnut avenue. This plot is the one that interests us. As an aside to our investigation, the eminent Lowell family lived on an estate centered near today's Jackson square and the Bromley-Heath housing development.

On June 24, 1847, Elizabeth Amory, widow of Thomas Amory and mother of singlewomen Louisa M. and Anna McLean, sold the 10 3/4 acre lot to a Reuben A. Lamb for $6,000. Here is where we finally meet again with Samuel Goodrich. The same day, Lamb, who owned an adjoining property, sold the land, minus 51,000 sq. ft. adjacent to his own land, to Samuel G. Goodrich for the same $6,000 price. The deed, retaining the original lease, included "the unexpired residue and remainder of the term of 120 years from the twenty-first day of April, 1796." This refers to the original lease of the "school farm" land, as it was called at the time, by the Roxbury Grammar School.

In November of 1847, Mr. Goodrich agreed to pay David N. Skilling of Boston $7250 to build a villa and a stable. The house was to be designed by architect William Sparrell. Goodrich set a payment schedule in six parts, with partial payment due at the completion of each stage.

1. Frame raised, covered, chimney topped, well dug.
2. Roof shingled, furnace set, vault and drain finished.
3. Fitted for plastering, stairs up, window and door frames and clapboard finished.
4. Plastered, piazza finished, water-closet in, blinds hung.
5. Stable finished, all but last coat of paint done.
6. October 1, 1848, remainder due.

So there was a second house for Peter Parley in Jamaica Plain. Not only was it planned: in November of 1852, David Skilling accepted full payment and released all claim on the house. However, that same day, Samuel Goodrich sold his new house, stable and land to George R. Russell, a West Roxbury merchant, for $26,000. Peter Parley would never live in his second Jamaica Plain estate house. What happened? When the house was completed, Samuel Goodrich was living in Paris and American Consul to France. After spending time in New York and Washington D.C., he went to France in 1851, where he served as Consul until 1853, when a change of administration in Washington led to his replacement by a new political appointment. He and his family stayed in Paris until 1855, when they returned to the United States, but not to Jamaica Plain. Goodrich and wife settled in his home state of Connecticut, and he died while on a trip to New York.


Town of West Roxbury, 1874. Washington street marked in red. Forest Hills street and Walnut avenue run somewhat parallel from upper left to lower right.

Property plan. Surveyor, Alexander Wadsworth, 1860.


In 1864, George R. Russell sold the property to Albert Thompson of Boston. The Albert Thompson property held the House that Parley Built. The house was torn down by 1896, when the entire area had been laid out into streets and divided into the house lots we see today. The house sat near the intersection of the appropriately named Peter Parley road and Olmstead street. So now we know - there was a second Goodrich house (in name, if not in habitation), but not the one I originally guessed on Montebello road. So what can we learn about the Montebello road house? That's another story.



Sources:

Peter Parley, As Known To His Daughter; The Connecticut Magazine.
Daniel Bell and the Roxbury Grammar School land.
Works about Samuel Griswald Goodrich.
Samuel Goodrich, alias Peter Parley.


Norfolk Deeds:

19:198 6/02/1803 - Lowell ----->Amory
112:308 3/12/1845 - Amory ----->Amory
173:299 6/24/1847 - Amory ---->Lamb
173:299 6/24/1847 - Lamb ----->Goodrich
176:240 11/06/1847 - Goodrich engages Skilling
213:248 11/21/1852 - Skilling paid in full
213:248 11/21/1852 - Goodrich ---->Russell
304:37 6/06/1864 - Russell ----->Thompson
324:37 A.Wadsworth, surveyor's plan

Hall and Boynton Streets - The Beginning (and more)

Building Lots in West Roxbury - owned by G.H. Williams, April 20, 1870 T.B. Moses, Surveyor.


The surveyor's plan above shows the development of a 10 acre parcel of land between South street on the left and the railroad tracks on the right. At the top of the plan, not shown, would be the houses on the south side of today's McBride street, which had been developed starting in the 1850s by the third David S. Greenough. Boynton and Hall streets are shown, with regular house lots of 50 feet width. The lots along South street are a little larger, probably to suit business use. At the bottom of the plan, the land is owned by the heirs of Jacob Weld.

I'd like to start with the surveyor's plan above and go backwards through time. We'll find an interesting little nugget in the end, and learn something about the men who developed Jamaica Plain along the way.In May of 1873, the entire development was purchased from John J. Merrill and Alfred Hill, both of Boston, by George F. Woodman, for a trust that included J. Alba Davis and Charles F. Farrington as three equal partners. It was agreed that Woodman would arrange sales of the lots, take a cut to pay costs, and split the rest between the three partners. George Woodman lived in a substantial house that still stands on the corner of Elm and Greenough opposite the old Jamaica Plain high school. He bought and sold a large number of house lots on the old Greenough estate, including many along Carolina, Sedgwick, Newbern, John A. Andrew and Call streets, as well as lots on the west side of South street. He served as a Selectman in the short-lived town of West Roxbury, and was chairman of the Building Committee for the Civil War Soldier's Monument that stands at South and Centre street today. J. Alba Davis was a leather merchant who owned a grand Green Revival house, one of the earliest houses built on Green street, and later moved to Chestnut avenue. Davis later bought the house of General William H. Sumner at the crown of the eponymous Sumner Hill. Charles F. Farrington lived at the corner of Pond and Burroughs street in a house that faced Jamaica Pond. Ebenezer T. Farrington is listed as owning the house in 1874, so Charles must have been a son still living with his parents at the time.


In 1871, two years earlier, the property above had been sold to John J. Merrill for $45,832.49 (yes, they did value land to the penny at the time) by George H. Williams, a local harness maker and real estate investor, and Merrill immediately sold a half share in the property to partner Alfred Hill for $29,166.13. George Williams and his brother John held a position similar to George F. Woodman in mid-nineteenth century Jamaica Plain. Together and individually they bought and sold land all over the community. Their 1840s Greek Revival double house still stands on Green street, and is featured on the Jamaica Plain Historical Society Green Street tour. They owned and developed land on Seaverns and Harris avenues and Myrtle and Burroughs streets. They,and brother John's widow, owned and lived in two signature properties in Jamaica Plain. Linden Hall, on the corner of Pond and Centre streets, was built in 1755, and was the home of schoolmaster Charles Greene. He boarded students in his house, and taught in an adjacent building. The house still stands, minus its wings and its dignity, tucked away at the bend in Grovenor road. The other house, one of the oldest and grandest houses on Eliot street, is now called 1 Dane street, and suffered a fire during rehabilitation earlier this year. After his brother's death, George Williams developed Spring Park, including Spring Park Avenue and the alphabet streets of Adelaide, Burr, Clive, Dresden and Enfield. This land was purchased from the heirs of Ward Nicholas Boylston, son of Loyalist Capt. Benjamin Hallowell.

Our final exchange goes back just one year to 1871, when George H. Williams purchased the land from Elizabeth and Susan Weld. The purchase price was $29,166.13, giving Mr. Williams a profit of $16,666.36 when he sold it a year later. The surveyor's plan above was made for Mr. Williams, so perhaps we can credit him with having prepared the land for sale as part of the reason for the dramatic increase in value. The Weld ladies lived across South street from the development, and they did put restrictions on the deed, which was common in the days of no zoning laws. No business injurious to health or good morals were to be allowed on the land, and for twenty years, unless the ladies should move away sooner, no land within 100 feet of South street could be sold to a person of Irish birth. So there's your interesting nugget. I've read many deeds from the 1800s, and this is the first to include a restriction on the Irish. Keyes (today's McBride) street had already been settled by Irish in the previous two decades, and 100 feet was no more than two house lots, so it's hard to imagine exactly what the Weld ladies were attempting to accomplish. In 1885, a Miss Susan Weld shows up in the Boston Directory at 29 Beacon street, but an 1885 property map shows Susan and Elizabeth still owning property opposite the top of Boynton and McBride streets, and the Boynton-Hall lot still in the hands of J. Alba Davis et. al., and still undeveloped. The year 1873 had brought a financial depression that lasted through much of the 1870s, so perhaps credit had been unavailable for real estate development (sound familiar?).

Williams house, 1840s, Green street.


The fomer Linden Hall (shorn of its wings and moved), residence of the Williams brothers, 1860s-7os.



1 Dane street, home of John William's widow Irene, 1874.



Elm street, home of George F. Woodman.


Charles F. Farrington house, Pond (Jamaicaway) and Burroughs streets, 1899 (David Rumsey Collection).


Boynton and Hall street, 1899. Note that Charles F. Farrington still owned lots along the end of Boynton street (JP Historical Society).



Norfolk County Deeds:

440:8 5/19/1873 - Merrill & Hill to Woodman, et. al.
406:265 5/04/1871 - Williams to Merrill
406:266 5/04/1871 - Merrill to Hill
391:119 4/04/1870 - Weld & Weld to Williams

Well Now!

Old well, somewhere in Jamaica Plain (2008). Click on photo for a larger view.


An interest in local history can lead us to what might be called domestic history. How did people live in times past? How were there every day lives different from ours? A well known example is the use of horses before the coming of the railroads, electricity and the automobile. Another example of a significant change in technology is in the water supply and plumbing. Until Jamacia Plain was annexed to Boston as part of the town of West Roxbury and was connected to the Lake Cochituate supply, water would have come to most houses from a well, and left into a septic system of some kind. By the 1870s, this would have required hundreds of wells, either in cellars or in the yards of each house. Many of those houses still stand - so where are the wells? I've been told by a resident of an 1840s era house that her husband found their well while working in the back yard - there must be many more sitting just under the surface of lawns, and covered up in basements.

I found the old well pictured above while walking in Jamaica Plain. I left the photo full size so that you can see detail. On the far side of the well you can see the puddingstone wall. There are sticks and a pipe coming up out of the well, and either a dead tree or a tree truck someone stuck down there long ago. I won't say where I found it, but I'd be interested to know whether anyone else has seen it.

Search For A Lost Cemetery

The Greenough estate (approximately). Hales, 1832 (JP Historical Society).





The Greenough estate sat on 50 acres in central Jamaica Plain along South and Centre streets. From the 1780s until 1924, Five generations of owners, all named named David Stoddard Greenough, lived on the property. The estate had been the property of Loyalist Commodore Joshua Loring, and had served as a headquarters for the revolutionary militia and as a hospital after Loring and his family had removed to Boston, and then into exile in England. The estate served both as hospital and last resting place, as soldiers who died at the house were buried on the property. This burial site, as well as two others in Jamaica Plain, have already been discussed in an earlier entry.

I've seen one reference to the location of this former burial place that placed it towards the back, east side of the estate, near the former Jamaica Plain high school and the railroad tracks. During a recent tour of the Loring-Greenough house, I was told by the guide that the soldiers had been buried near the former Methodist church (now Seventh Day Adventist), which sits at the intersection of Elm and Newbern streets. That information caused me to keep digging, and I think I've come up with a clue that may settle the matter.

Lets look at the property in question. The Polleys farmed the area for three generations during the Colonial era. After the Revolution, it came into the hands of the Greenough family. Development of this and adjacent land - between Centre and Washington streets - began with Samuel Goodrich, who laid out Green street and sold house lots at the border between his property and the Greenough estate in 1837. In the 1840s, William Winchester Jr. laid out Seaverns avenue (probably from Centre to Alveston streets) from the land of Luther Seaverns, his twice father-in-law (William Winchester married Mary Parker Seaverns, who died in 1837, and then her sister Ann Augusta Seaverns, who lived until 1899).

Development of the Greenough property started during the 1850s, and and extended through the 1890s. The first David S. Greenough died in 1826, and his son followed him in 1830, leaving a widow, five children, and no will. His widow, Maria Foster Doane Greenough Sumner (takes a breath) died in 1843, son John in 1846, and daughter Jane in 1847, leaving the three surviving children as heirs of the estate. The Jamaica Plain property seems to have been divided between David and Anna, with David ending up with the south portion, from McBride street to Greenough avenue, and Anna getting the area between Greenough and Seaverns avenues.

As my current interest - remember the burial site? - is in the Sumner hill area, I'll leave discussion of the southern section for another time. When Anna married Henry King Burgwyn of North Carolina, her property was put into trust. It was her trustees, James Read and William Duhon, who sold off the land that became Sumner Hill for Anna while she lived in North Carolina.




The surveyor's plan above shows lots being sold by Samuel Goodrich. Green street (appropriately marked in green) runs from top to bottom, with Seaverns avenue (red) running parallel to it. Across the bottom is the railroad tracks (blue). Seaverns avenue and this part of Everett street served as a back access to the lots being sold, and followed the boundary between the properties of Goodrich and David Greenough. The access road continues across the railroad tracks, and crosses Stony Brook at the bottom of the page. Somewhere on the Greenough side of this map, the soldiers were buried.


Charles Whitney, 1849 (BPL)

I knew that there were maps of Jamaica Plain from 1819 and later, so I began going through each one, looking especially at the area in question. It didn't take long to find something interesting on this one, from 1849. The streets are a little different than we recognize and some are labeled incorrectly, but let's take a look. As on the Goodrich plan from 12 years previous, Green street is shown. Notice that Starr lane runs from Centre street all the way to Elm street, and that Seaverns avenue does not connect to Starr lane. Roanoke and Revere streets are there, but Greenough avenue is not, and Alveston street does not connect Harris avenue to Greenough. More importantly, look at the street that would become Everett street. Unlike the Goodrich plan above, it does not show a continuation crossing the railroad tracks and Stony brook. This is probably because Green street made a second railroad crossing superfluous. What you do see at the end of Everett street is a little drawing of a gravestone, complete with cross (click the picture to see a larger version). This would put the cemetery at approximately where Bishop street now joins Everett street.

View Larger Map

This Google map shows the location marked on the 1849 Whiteny map shown above. It is quite close to the Methodist church location referred to above, that being at the intersection of Elm and Newbern streets. Just the short length of Bishop street separates the two sites. Given that the man who drew the map may have been less than fussy about the cemetery location, my guide at the Loring Greenough house may have been right about the cemetery having been at the church site. Then again, we can assume that he did see the cemetery, and his marker may be more accurate.

All in all, I doubt I'll get any closer to the actual site than what I've come up with here. Let's just hope that all the remains were removed before the land was developed. Many years had passed, and it is possible that some bones were left behind. Could there be some buried in back yards and under streets? Could be.

Sources: Winchester Notes, by Fanny Winchester Hotchkiss,

Mr. Wanckel's House

The print above is titled "E. Wanckel's Estate At Jamaica Plain, Near Boston," and is dated 1858. Copies of this and other prints are being sold by a vendor in association with the Boston Public Library. I found it for sale on Ebay here. When I first saw this print, it made me wonder who E. Wanckel was, and exactly where his house was. From the nearness of the street, I guessed that perhaps it was Lamartine street, with the land behind rising towards Rockview street. Of course, a print is not a photograph, and there's no reason to be sure that the view in the print represents exactly what was there at the time - I believe they call it artistic license.

I decided to take look in the Norfolk Registry of Deeds for Mr. Wanckel, and sure enough I found him. In 1855, Edmund Wanckel, watchmaker, purchased the land and buildings thereon from Edwin Evans, glue manufacturer, for $2400. Evans, in turn, had purchased it from Ebenezer Weld for the same $2400 in 1844. The property, however, was not on Lamartine street, but rather along Shawmut street - today's Washington street. Well, the only place that Washington street is that close to the railroad tracks is near Forest Hills.

Eventually, I remembered that there is a detailed 1859 map available online. Sure enough, E. Wanckel shows up along the southeast side of Washington street, near today's Brookley road. The map below shows South street on the left, the railroad tracks and Washington street. The road in the background of the print may have been Forest Hills street, and the land further on Franklin Park.


Henry Francis Walling, 1859 (BPL)


So there's one little mystery cleared up.


Norfolk County Deeds:

151:69, 1844, Weld to Edwards,
155:222, 1845, Edwards to Evans,
155:222, 1855, Evans to Wanckel,
238:313, 1865, Wanckel to Emily Scharp.

Corporal John R. Reilly Receives Medal

I received a scan of this newspaper article from a reader, and wanted to share it. There's no date or other information, but based on the presence of an air base in France, that would put it near the end of the war in Europe. I found a similar article describing one of my uncles getting a medal during the same war, and was able to share it with him after all these years. Just a reminder that we still have soldiers in the field, and they are still at risk every day.




A NINTH AIR FORCE FIGHER-BOMBER BASE. France -- Corporal John R Reilly, Jamaica Plain, Mass., receives the Soldier's Medal from Lt. Col. Harold N. Holt, Philadelphia, Pa, his commanding officer. The P-47 Thunderbolt mechanic was awarded the decoration for saving a fellow soldier's life.

A Ninth Air Force Fighter-Bomber Base, France -- For smothering flames on a fellow soldier's clothing without regard for his own safety, Corporal John R. Reilly, 14 Boynton street, Jamaica Plain, Mass, has been awarded the Soldier's Medal at headquarters of a U.S. Ninth Air Force fighter-bomber group in France.

Corporal Reilly was on kitchen police when he saw another soldier running through the bivouac area with his clothes afire. Corporal Reilly ran after the man, tackled him and threw himself on the flames.

The son of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Reilly, the corporal is a mechanic at the "Hun Hunter" P-47 Thunderbolt base in France.

Spare The Cold, Spoil The Child

I found this picture in a book titled Community Civics, published in 1921. So where was the open air school room in Jamaica Plain? Judging by the hoods and cloaks, it was a brisk day when the picture was taken. Children who were deemed susceptible to tuberculosis infection were sent to schools in tents and on roof-tops. In the belief that recirculated hot air was bad for pre-tubercular patients, the children were kept in an environment of clean outdoor air - including throughout the winter. There was an open-air classroom movement in Europe and the United States, joining many other reforming and improving movements of the time. In the contemporary literature, the children are described as perfectly happy in their unheated classrooms, with windows only closed for snowstorms. Hmmm.... I suspect that if the children had the opportunity to write the books, we might have a different picture of the "treatment."

Boston's first open air classroom seems to have been on Parker hill. The picture above shows us that by 1920, Jamaica Plain had joined the movement. But where was this picture taken? The structure almost looks like the bandstand at Jamaica Pond. A little refined Internet searching came up with this listing:

Open Air Class, Hillside School, Jamaica Plain.
Capacity for open air classes: One room, 30 children.
Medical Director: Dr. William H. Devine.
Supported by Department of Public Schools.

Hillside school, 1924. (Bromley).

The Hillside School was a brick building that sat at the corner of Everett and Elm streets. The location is now a parking lot opposite the Central Congregational church. This picture doesn't seem to match what we'd expect from a brick school house. So we have a location for an open air classroom in Jamaica Plain, but it doesn't seem to be the pictured one. Another little mystery keeps its secrets.

***  Secret revealed!

Years after this original post, I've stumbled into the solution of this minor mystery. The schoolroom in the photo above was on the roof of the Refectory at Franklin Park.

Originally a restaurant, with private rooms available, the Refectory also served as a branch library before being torn down in 1971. I will add that while the Refectory was not in Jamaica Plain, it was on the property of Franklin Park, which was part of the old town of West Roxbury. So if J.P. had not been annexed to Boston, this location  probably would be considered Jamaica Plain now.

Source: A Tuberculosis Directory: v. 2, 1916.
Information on location of schoolroom: http://tinyurl.com/gpbhz9f

Still More JP Business Men - 1888

In the early 1870s, David Keezer built a house on Alveston street, which still stands today. He also bought the land that now makes up the Greenough place cul-de-sac and divided it into the present-day lots. He has already been featured on this site in a rather gruesome entry here.


D.Keezer, Provision Market, Woolsey Block, corner Green street, Opposite Depot, Jamaica Plain. One of the oldest established provision markets in this community is that conducted by Mr.D. Keezer, who now conducts business at the corner of Green street, (Woolsey Block) Jamaica Plain. Mr. Keezer has been in business for twenty-nine years and was formerly located on Centre street, and has occupied his present location since 1883. We can pay Mr. Keezer no higher compliment than to say that during the twenty-nine years his enterprise has been before the public, it has never been more skillfully managed and more truly popular than at present. Mr. Keezer's guiding principle seems to be, that people shall have what they pay for, and such of our readers as have had any experience in marketing, need not be told that this of itself would ensure the success of his enterprise, provided it is scrupulously carried out. Mr. Keezer strives as far as possible to make all customers permanent ones, by making it evident that fair treatment is assured to all. Employment is given to three reliable and experienced assistants. These premises comprise a store with a frontage of twenty-three feet and a depth of 45 feet, where will always be found a heavy stock of meats, vegetables and fruit, together with poultry and game in their measure. His prices are very moderate and all orders are promptly filled.


Richards, L.J. 1899 - David Rumsey Collection

Lorenz Ernst had his Lamartine street bakery directly opposite to the outbound train depot at Boylston station, very near today's Stony Brook Orange Line station.


L. Ernst, Bread, Cake and Pastry Baker, and dealer in French and American Confectionery, 175 Lamartine Street and 124 Green Street, Jamaica Plain. On account of the localities in which his establishments are situated, it is obvious that Mr. L. Ernst, of Jamaica Plain, must handle only choice and desirable products or otherwise his enterprise would meet with but meagre encouragement, instead of the liberal and rapidly increasing patronage it actually receives. This gentleman founded his present business in 1881, and having not only a thorough knowledge of the baker's trade in general, but also a keen appreciation of the probable demands of the class to which he prepared to cater in particular, it is not surprising that the result has been the building up of a very extensive business. The premises utilized comprise two stores each covering an area of 20 x 30 feet; one located at 175 Lamartine street and the other at 123 Green street, and employment is afforded to five men and three girls. Bread, cake and pastry are always to be had at these establishments, fresh, appetising and carefully made, and in addition to the above-mentioned products Mr. Ernst deals in French and American confectionery. He pays the strictest attention to the selection of the many materials to be called upon to use in the conduct of his business, and rejects all that is not fully up to the high standard he has established for his guidance. Customers may feel sure that the reputation already gained for uniformity and superiority of manufacture will be rightly sustained. Mr. Ernst is a native of Germany and is very popular in his line of trade, and what is more, fully deserves the popularity he has attained.